by Bryan Jennings

Created on: February 09, 2008

As far as funding priorities go, transportation infrastructure, things like bridges, railways, highways, ports and the like, is not nearly as sexy as something like a new type of destroyer, or some boondoggle that promises to create 3000 new jobs to do absolutely nothing. Infrastructure is, however, necessary to a modern country's continual economic growth. As such, if the United States wants to have an economy that continues to remain robust, the country's infrastructure needs continual investment.

When people think infrastructure, they think bridges collapsing, and that's about it. Improving the infrastructure is about so much more than fixing bridges and patching potholes. It means upgrading our rail lines, the ones we still have left, to be able to handle high speed trains, so that commuters have a way to get to work that doesn't involve a car. It means making sure our ports are up to date with the latest technology to unload ships and package goods. It means making sure our electricity grid not only has excess power, but also can bring that power to the nation a number of ways, in case the grid gets damaged. It means upgrading our airports to handle large planes, more planes and more passengers. It means expanding existing roads, or making new ones, to deal with heavier congestion.

All these things help improve the economy. Allowing people to travel allows wealth to travel too. If you run a factory that makes solar panels, for instance, you'd want to have access either to a highway where you can put them on trucks, or, even more ideally, a train station where you can load them on boxcars. Few people understand that modern diesel trains are the most efficient way to ship both goods, and people. Expanding and improving our rail lines to take pressure off our highways and reduce the number of trucks on the road is a must, if for nothing else than a cost saving measure for both companies and the government.

Things like maintenance shouldn't require a sentence defending them, because it just makes such obvious intuitive sense. Any time you have 1.5 ton boxes of metal with people in them suspended in the air it would stand to reason you want to make sure those boxes don't suddenly tumble to the ground.

Investing in our infrastructure is investing in both our economic growth, and our safety while traveling. Funding it should be a no-brainer, and a high priority.

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